To celebrate Black (Metal) Friday, Century Media Records will reissue two classic titles: BORKNAGAR‘s “The Olden Domain” and MAYHEM‘s “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas”. Limited to 1,000 copies each, these titles will be available only at your local independent music store starting on Friday, November 23. To find a participating store near you, please check out www.recordstoreday.com.

“The Olden Domain” is BORKNAGAR‘s second studio album, and their first to feature English lyrics. It also marks the beginning of the band’s transition to their trademark progressive/folk/black metal sound featured on later records. This would be the band’s last studio album to feature Garm (credited on this album as “Fiery G. Maelstrom”) on vocals. It is also their first album to feature Kai K. Lie on bass, replacing Infernus.

Songwriting for “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” began as early as 1987, but due to the suicide of MAYHEM vocalist Per “Dead” Ohlin and murder of guitarist Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth, the album’s release was delayed until May of 1994. “De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas” is widely considered to be one of the most influential black metal albums of all time. Now available as a deluxe double LP in gatefold packaging with bonus poster, the darkness continues to bleed forth.

BORKNAGAR’s much anticipated new album “Urd” is out NOW in Europe and North America! Having recently been voted “album of the month” in the current issues of Germany’s Metal Hammer Magazine as well as Norway’s Scream Magazine, we would like to celebrate the release date by presenting another new song off the album online. To check out the track “Frostrite”, featuring the returned ICS Vortex (Arcturus, ex-Dimmu Borgir) on main vocals, please visit the band’s the band’s official facebook profile (“Like” required!) here: www.facebook.com/borknagarofficial

The album’s artwork was designed by Brazilian artist Marcelo Vasco (www.P2RDESIGN.com), who has not only already worked on the band’s previous “Universal” release but also with artists such as Soulfly, Belphegor, Einherjer or Keep of Kalessin. The mixing duties for the album were taken care of by Jens Bogren at Sweden’s Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, etc.).

Next to the standard CD, 180gr. vinyl LP (in unlimited black version, but also in very limited coloured pressings of 200x green copies via the CM Distro Shop in Europe and 100x golden copies via the CM Distro Shop in North America!), a limited edition first pressing version of the album will be available in Europe as Digipak with the 2 bonus tracks “Age Of Creation” (unreleased new album sessions’ track) and “My Friend Of Misery” (Metallica cover).

BORKNAGAR have previously launched a first promotional song off “Urd” on Century Media’s YouTube-channel. Go check out the enthralling track “Roots” here:

BORKNAGAR’s “Urd” can be pre-ordered in Europe from CM Distro in its different formats but also as bundle of the limited edition Digipak with an exclusive shirt.

Germany’s Metal Hammer Magazine and Norway’s Scream Magazine have voted “Urd”, the newest album of metallers BORKNAGAR, to become the ”album of the month” of their current issues! “Congratulations to the band for this great achievement…” Century Media Records posted.

BORKNAGAR’s mastermind Oystein G. Brun has checked in to comment about the amazing advance reactions as well as the band status as follows:

“Hey folks! Just wanted to give you all a brief status report from the BORK headquarter…

First off I would like to express our gratitude for all the amazing feedback we have got for the upcoming album. As earlier stated we’re all very satisfied and proud of the new album, but the fact that this album would unleash such a massive and positive feedback came a bit as a surprise for all of us. “Urd” recently won the “album of the month” in Metal Hammer Germany, something we really didn’t really expect being the “unconventional” band we are. Also we won the “album of the month” in Scream Magazine in Norway and it feels good to get that kind of recognition in our own territory. We have done numerous interviews the past weeks and what a joyful ride it is, the feedbacks are generally amazing and we can’t do anything but smile.

As you can see the album comes in different version; standard jewelcase CD, limited digipak with two extra tracks and a vinyl version in black, green and gold. Reportedly some of these limited items are soon out of stock, so if interested to have an exclusive edition of the album, make sure to place you order ASAP.

On another note we are currently working on a project that we will reveal soon, we are really excited about it and hopefully it will grant an additional and worthy dimension to our expression….

Due to the massive and positive feedback I would like to offer something back to all our fans: Fans can submit questions to the following mail address: mail.borknagar@gmail.com – The 20 first questions will be answered and launched on our sites. Please headline the mail with “Fan Question”. So if there is anything you are wondering about in relations to BORKNAGAR that journalists and magazines haven’t been digging into – feel free to submit your question!” Take care, folks! Øystein / BORKNAGAR”

As previously posted, BORKNAGAR are going to release their newest album “Urd” on March 2012 via Century Media Records. The album’s artwork was designed by Brazilian artist Marcelo Vasco (www.P2RDESIGN.com), who has not only already worked on the band’s previous “Universal” release but also with artists such as Soulfly, Belphegor, Einherjer or Keep of Kalessin. The mixing duties for the album were taken care of by Jens Bogren at Sweden’s Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, etc.).

On March 15, Aniruddh “Andrew” Bansal of Metal Assault conducted an interview with Øystein G. Brun of Norwegian avantgarde metallers BORKNAGAR. You can now listen to the chat HERE.

BORKNAGAR‘s new album, “Urd”, will be released on March 26 in Europe and March 27 in North America via Century Media Records. The CD was recorded with Jens Bogren at Fascination Street Studios (OPETH, PARADISE LOST, KATATONIA) in Örebro, Sweden. Source: Blabbermouth.net

Norwegian metallers BORKNAGAR have recently announced a new drummer, Baard Kolstad, for the band’s line-up. Baard will perform his first show together with the band at this year’s Inferno Festival in Norway, April 4th–7th in Oslo, Norway. Baard Kolstad has recently won the world championship in V- Drums, in Los Angeles.

BORKNAGAR’s mastermind Øystein G. Brun comments as follows: “First and foremost I would like to welcome Baard into the fold, may our journey ahead become a joy able ride. We are all very excited about Baard teaming up with the band. He has proven to be an immensely talented drummer with skills and a technique that is simply breathtaking. Our first encounter was late last year when he stepped in and recorded drums for ICS Vortex’s cover version of Metallica’s song “Don’t Tread On Me”. Since then we have kept an eye on him. When we spilt with David Kinkade a bit later on, the road ahead was obvious. We are all very much looking forward to pull off the very first gigs…” and also Baard Kolstad added: ”I’m really happy for this opportunity and the fact that I have earned the respect to play with BORKNAGAR. Really looking forward to the musical adventure that the future holds and will do my best to deal with the challenge in the most respectful and creative way. Now, I just want to play!”

As previously posted, BORKNAGAR are going to release their upcoming album “Urd” on March 26th, 2012 in Europe and North America via Century Media Records. The album’s artwork was designed by Brazilian artist Marcelo Vasco (www.P2RDESIGN.com), who has not only already worked on the band’s previous “Universal” release but also with artists such as Soulfly, Belphegor, Einherjer or Keep of Kalessin. The mixing duties for the album were taken care of by Jens Bogren at Sweden’s Fascination Street Studios (Opeth, Paradise Lost, Katatonia, etc.). This album can be now pre-ordered in Europe from CM Distro in its different formats but also as bundle of the limited edition Digipak with an exclusive shirt.